The concept of a telephone or phone that is meant only for voice conversation is becoming antiquated due to the expanding role of the phone as a generic device for exchanging information by being connected to personal computers (PCs) and other devices through intelligent accessories. It can be appreciated that this development has created a need to hide the complexities of the actual underlying devices from a user, so as to make only the desired service(s) available and visible to the user.
Due in part to the explosive growth in the cellular telephone and related markets, there has developed a need for physically connecting wireless telephones or radiotelephones, also referred to as mobile stations, to one or more intelligent accessories via a wired or wireless connection, such as through an infrared (IR) link or some other wireless communications medium such as low level radio frequency (RF) signals.
While some limited functionality exists today in this area, the existing approaches that are known to the inventors do not provide a satisfactory solution to the problem of isolating the user from the underlying hardware/software complexities.
A further problem that has arisen relates to the development of hardware, software and interfaces for providing new and enhanced functionality for mobile stations. As can be appreciated, it is undesirable for a number of reasons to completely or even partially reengineer portions of the mobile station and/or accessory software when it is desired to add a capability to interface with a new external device.
Related to the foregoing, it is undesirable to require modifications when going from a point to point configuration, such as a mobile station connected to one external device, when the mobile station is to be simultaneously connected to a plurality of external devices (a multipoint configuration).